Sean has a birthday coming up soon and his father and I have promised him a bicycle. So for the last month or so, every time we go to Wal-Mart, which is just about every day, we have to go to the bike department and test drive the various models.

If you have spent any time in the Wal-Mart bicycle department, then you know that as well as having a few floor models “on the floor” they also display them by hanging them from the front tire by a hook. If you have a child, then you also know that the one bike they want to test drive is not on the floor, but hanging from a hook.

Yesterday we were in Wal-Mart and we weren’t in a hurry, so when Sean asked me if I would get him a certain bike down from a hook, I agreed.

Removing those little 20-pound bikes from their hooks is not as easy as it looks.

In order to get the bike he wanted, I had to bend over slightly so as to not bump my head on the bike suspended directly above it. And then in some sort of Tom Cruise Mission Impossible style move, I had to delicately lift and turn the wheel just so at just the right angle at just the right moment in just the right sequence without gouging my eye out with the handle bar of the neighboring bike or knocking down the entire display of floor models like a line of dominos. Although that would have been a classic Antique Mommy moment. But the bike on the hook, it wouldn’t budge. It was like it had been super glued to the hook. So I did what I always do when something doesn’t work – I jiggled it and then I jiggled it harder.

When it finally began to give, I straightened up just a bit so that I could raise it up and off the hook. And that’s when the strap of my backpack purse caught on a bicycle that was hanging behind me. And I was kind of stuck. I wasn’t exactly suspended, but I was on my tip toes and I was tethered and I kind of felt like a guy in a parachute caught in a tree. And I felt mighty ridiculous. And so I began praying. “Dear kind and merciful God, please, I beg of you, don’t let any of my neighbors or anyone I know be anywhere near the bicycle department right now. And also, please God, let the security cameras not be working. Thank you and Amen.”

So then.

I put the bike back on its hook and then I tried to reach around and unhook myself. After a good bit of flapping and twisting, it became apparent to me and the little boy who found the whole scene extreeeemely amusing, that I can no longer access that area between my shoulder blades as I could in days of yore and youth.

Then in a move that normally should be reserved for someone wearing sequins and featured on Dancing with the Stars — and never by a mom in a Wal-Mart – I did a little shoulder shimmy and wiggled myself free of the backpack. Just like Houdini.

Sean squealed and clapped his hands when I finally got his bike down and then he hopped on it and gleefully took a few wobbly laps around the bicycle aisle hollering for all the store to hear, ”Look at me Mom! Look at me!”

And the sight of that nearly four-year-old boy gleefully pedaling away from me, so happy and so proud to be riding a big bike, put an ostrich egg in my throat.  I stood in the bike department of Wal-Mart trying not to cry.  The journey of his life has begun and every day in some small way, he is pedaling away from me.

“Hey Mom! Guess what!? Sean went poo poo on the potty! Hold on, here’s Sean. Sean, tell Wivian that you went poo poo on the potty!”

“I went poo poo on the potty.”

“Whaa?”

“Here – hand the phone back sweetie. Yes! And oh what a day of rejoicing it was! We flushed with great pride, we high fived, we celebrated! You were so right! You said when he was ready to poop on the potty, he would poop, and poop he did! Isn’t that fantastic!? Poop!”

“Yes, but…”

“Oh I can’t tell you how happy I am that he finally pooped on the potty. I thought this day would never come to pass. Sorry, bad pun. Seriously, I never knew I could be so excited about poop! And the other thing you said, you know about wrapping up the little prizes and letting him pick? He loved that. You think of everything! You are s’marvelous. ”

“Well, thank you but –”

“He wouldn’t go for three days you know – and we were worried, but hoo boy do grapes ever do the trick! His little ole’ face turned so red – well, by the time, he went, oh my! You don’t even want to know –“

“No, I don’t think I do —  who IS this?”

“Mom?”

“I don’t think so. Who is this?”

“This is Antique Mommy. Is this Wivian?”

“No.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“You’ve got the wrong number dear, but congratulations.”

“Oh my. Sorry. Thank you. Sorry to have bothered you. Sorry.”

“That’s okay honey.”  Click

Owning an iPod may very well net you some cool. However be warned. The iPod giveth cool and the iPod taketh away.

Recently, I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and get out for a little speed walk. So I put on my running shoes, clipped my iPod onto my waist band and I headed out down the jogging trail. I had my groove thang on and I was stepping lively to an old Michael Jackson song. Let’s dance! Let’s shout! Shout! Shake your body down to the growwwnd! I was pumping my arms and breathing hard and I might have even worked up a bead of sweat.

I hadn’t gotten too far when in the distance I thought I saw someone I knew, so I raised my hand to wave. And this is where the iPod gods (igods?) decided to mess with me. I caught my hand on the cord and violently yanked one of the earbuds out of my ear. And in a manner that is not only uncanny, but defies science, the earbud went flying out in front of me. So I step it up a bit in an effort to catch the runaway earbud. And I’m reaching and grasping and bobbling it back and forth from hand to hand like a hot potato and I’m stepping longer and longer, but the ear bud won’t be caught.

And then finally, under the power of gravity, it fell downward and caught between my legs. It wrapped around my thigh with astonishing centrifugal force and then unwrapped and spiraled around the other leg with my next step. So now I have one earbud in my ear and one between my legs. With every excruciatingly long step I take, my head is jerked sharply downward. And for reasons unknown to me, I can’t seem to stop walking like John Cleese.

So I continue to speed walk, or I should probably say, speed trip. Like an out of control down hill skier, I’m bent over and lurching forward, tripping and tripping, yet not quite giving into falling. My strides are getting impossibly longer and more awkward as though I’m being yank along by an invisible string for the amusement of a giant cat. I am poetry in motion — bad bad coffeehouse poetry at 2am after an evening of cheap wine.

At the same time I was trying with every muscle in my body not to fall, I was also praying that I would. That I could just fall and get it over with, crash to the ground and maybe even black out and not remember any of it. Maybe wake up with a handsome fireman bent over me checking my vitals.

Finally, I give in and decide, what the hell, just fall already and be done with it. But no, I can’t even fall with any measure of cool. Just as I prepared to tuck and roll and my knees were mere inches from the pavement, I run into a spider’s web and start flailing and swatting and flapping at the invisible sticky. So then. Now I’m doing some bizarre version of the chicken dance.

Now, remember at the beginning how I told you that I waved to someone I thought I knew? And how that unleashed the chain reaction of uncool? Well, then imagine for a moment, if you will, how this whole scene might have appeared from their perspective. Yet she bravely continued to walk towards me.

Finally the iPod gods had had their fun with me and pulled the pins from the Antique Mommy voodoo doll. The world stopped spinning and I am finally able to right myself — just in time to see that the person I waved to? I don’t know her. I don’t even know her. And frankly, I’m relived to know that it wasn’t a neighbor who would start a rumor that Antique Mommy was drunk at 9am. She gives me a quick tight-lipped smile before averting her eyes, no doubt relieved to see that I wasn’t foaming at the mouth and hurries past me.

I am a total spaztard and should not be allowed out in public with or without an iPod. My cool has been revoked. iPod taketh my cool away and has given it someone worthy. Someone who knows how to walk and wave at the same time.

The other day I decided that my clunky 1980s Sony Walkman with cassette player and AM/FM radio was seriously dragging down my cool quotient and that I should probably make the leap into the new millennium by purchasing an IPOD.

Always one to be on the trailing edge of what’s hot, hip and happening, I didn’t really know what an IPOD was exactly. Only that it is some sort of personal music Walkman device. And if there is anything that will ratchet down your cool quotient, it’s using the phrase “Walkman device” in the year 2007.

The Apple commercials left me with the impression that as soon as I bought an IPOD I would automatically become cool, as well as be able to dance in public like nobody’s business. And then maybe get cast in a Gap commercial or something. I may have inferred the Gap commercial part. But that possibility was appealing, you know, in case my blogging career doesn’t pan out and the Gap starts looking for uncool and out of shape 47-year-old women to dance in their ads.

When I got to the electronics store, I put Sean in the cart and we went up and down the aisles looking for the IPODs. To me, everything in an electronics store looks the same — rows and rows of silver boxes and black carrying cases for the sliver boxes and then cables to plug into the silver boxes.

After wandering the store for forty years, a sales boy took pity on me and led me into the land of IPOD where he began techno-evangelizing from the book of Apple. I was impressed because I didn’t know that 13-year-olds could even get jobs! And God bless his geeky little heart. My skinny, pimply, ill-clad, shampoo-challenged sales child, he was as smart and as sweet and as earnest as he could be. But we were not speaking the same language.

I drifted in and out of consciousness while Sales Child painstakingly and thoroughly explained everything. Everything. Anyone. Including Steve Jobs. Ever. Wanted to know about IPODs. But was afraid to ask. I pretended to listen and tried not to yawn overtly. As I stood there watching him talk about gigs and megs and cylinders, I looked at Sean sitting in the cart and then I looked back at Sales Child. And then I realized that he probably wasn’t born a pimply geeky little Sales Child. No, he was probably a cute little boy at one time too. His mother probably still thinks he’s a cute little boy. And then it occurred to me that his mother is probably ten years younger than me. And has a tattoo. And she is probably on her second or third IPOD. And then that line of thinking became unpleasant so I went to my happy place until his lips stopped moving.

Then finally! He stopped talking! Amen already! And like a good car salesman, he got around to the most important question of the day — what color would the little lady like?

Maybe you’ve figured out by now that there is no real point to this post other than to report that I am the proud owner of a lime green IPOD. And I love it. Still waiting for my cool to kick in. In the meantime I’m practicing for my Gap audition. Just in case.

This morning I had an appointment with a spine doctor. Since last fall, I have been having these nagging pains in my neck that have nothing to do with people in my life who fall into that category.

All winter I ignored the pain as best I could until finally I couldn’t. Then I paid a visit to my GP who sent me off for an MRI. The MRI revealed mostly good news — the pain wasn’t imaginary and it wasn’t a tumor but I do have a pinched nerve somewhere along my spine. I was kind of glad to learn that the pain was caused by something because if the MRI had shown nothing then I would have had to suffer Dr. GP trying to explain that concept to me in that overly-calm and even tone that doctors use when talking to crazy people, mad dogs and women. And that reeeeally makes my neck hurt.

Dr. GP referred me to Dr. Spine and so that’s where I found myself this morning.

I was mightily impressed with Dr. Spine’s operation. I was welcomed into his beautifully appointed high tech cruise-ship style lobby. I was offered a beverage of my choice, a plethora of current magazines from which to choose and a computer with internet access. I thought I had died and gone to Starbucks!

Without delay I was shown to a lovely exam room where a steward turned down the bed for me and showed me how to work the mini-bar. No not really. But almost. I was given a gift bag (seriously!) and thanked for choosing Dr. Spine to serve my pinched nerve needs. I was instructed to make myself comfortable and to watch a video that would explain all about Dr. Spine and his philosophy on life and what a great and amazing guy he and his partners are. The steward turned on the video and left the room. In keeping with my high school study habits, I promptly picked up a magazine featuring Heather Locklear on the cover and started flipping through the pages, hoping there wouldn’t be a quiz later.

Since my adventures in cardiology, I figured that I’d probably be waiting for the good doctor for quite some time, so I skipped the “how to have firmer abs in seven days” article and went right for the “Have Better S*x Tonight” article, the one with the picture of the couple where she has her legs playfully wrapped around his head and he’s wearing one of those Mona Lisa smiles. I hadn’t been reading but a minute when Dr. Spine rapped very loudly on the door and scared the life out of me. Startled, I jumped to my feet and the magazine slid out of my lap and onto the floor, open not to the page on abs or even the page with Heather and her gold lamé bikini, but exactly to the page I had been reading. Dr. Spine came in and extended his hand and then looked down to see “Have Better S*x Tonight.”

“Hmph.” He said. And then he bent down and picked up the magazine and handed it to me. And then he gave me the Mona Lisa smile.

I cringed the cringe of all cringes. And in a new medical discovery, I learned that embarrassment will make you forget all about the pain of a pinched nerve.

I’m at Red Lobster.

On a Friday night.

At 5pm.

I am wearing the same Wal-Mart workout clothes that I put on at 7am that morning.

But I never got around to working out.

I look down and notice my shirt is on inside out.

I am drinking a glass of house Cabernet. That is Red Lobster house wine people.

I, not my date, pay the tab. (He can’t find his credit card. Of course.)

When the waiter returns with the bill and my credit card, he asks for my ID.

I consider jumping on the seat of the booth and punching the air Tom Cruise style, but instead I just shout “GOD BLESS YOU MAN!” And then I whip out my license (out of a diaper bag) and show it to him and anyone who will look in my direction.

In the Red Lobster house wine provided haze, I think I’ve been carded.

And then he says, “Ma’am, the back of your credit card says Ask for ID – See?” He holds the card out at a distance so I can see it.

Psssssssst.

That is the sound of my ego deflating, adjusting to the appropriate level for a 46-year-old woman with a toddler wearing Wal-Mart clothes inside out and backwards at 5pm on a Friday night in Red Lobster drinking house wine, paying for her date and shouting God Bless You Man! for no good reason. That level is somewhere under the booth along with the stray Goldfish and dropped color crayons.

I console myself with the fact that at least I didn’t jump on the booth. There’s that.

“Oh. Well then,” I say. “I knew that. God bless you just the same sir.”

If you are under the age of 27, you probably don’t want this information. Go on then and enjoy your firm skin and lip gloss and live life ignorantly blissful for another 20 years. And when you see me tweezing my chin in the car, just look the other way.

Then: 1987
Now: 2007

Then: Lip Gloss (sparkly strawberry)
Now: Lipstick (age-defying, non-bleeding, matte-finish)

Then: Concealer for zits
Now: Concealer for zits and dark circles

Then: Mini-pad (in case I start)
Now: Mini-pad (in case I sneeze)

Then: Eyelash curler
Now: Tweezers

Then: Hair spray
Now: Ponytail holder

Then: Spare contact lens
Now: Magnifying glass

Then: Altoids
Now: Skittles

It is the unfortunate state of my being that a doctor’s appointment is a reason to get all gussied up – to shave, to shampoo, to lather, rinse and repeat. To wear nice underwear. I remember when getting gussied up meant cocktails and a good time that didn’t involve a speculum.

Nonetheless. I gussied for the good doctor and enjoyed a 45-minute Wiggles-free drive across the yonder reaches of the metroplex.

As I pulled up to the parking garage gate, I rolled down my window to get a ticket. To my left I saw a young man pulling a cart that was precariously laden with canned soft drinks. I held my breath and waited as he slowly lugged and coaxed the top-heavy cart in front of my car. It teetered, it groaned, it rocked. I breathed a sigh of relief when he finally cleared the gate. I impatiently pushed the big green button, the machine made one of those “Aaaaaant! You lose!” sounds and then spit a ticket at me. The gate went up and I grabbed my ticket anxious to get to my appointment on time.

Just then, soda boy decided that the laws of physics didn’t apply to him. With both hands on the handle, he bent his knees, put his butt into it and jerked the cart in an attempt to hoist the caravan of cokes up and over the curb. The load wavered back and forth in slow motion as though in an earthquake. I knew what was about to happen. I prayed for a different outcome. Then an avalanche of soft drinks tumbled off the cart, onto my car, under my car, into the parking garage and everywhere else. Of course.

What to do? I looked in my rearview mirror. Backing up was not an option. I already had my ticket and there were several cars behind me. The gate was up, but unless I wanted to run over soda boy, his cart and the mother lode of cola, I wasn’t going anywhere soon. Yet I considered it.

Had I a lick of sense, I would have just sat in the car and waited. But no. I did not have a lick of sense. Or a slurp or even a taste. I got my gussied up self out of the car and started hunting cans of soda like they were Easter eggs. And then in some spiteful combination of bad karma and physics, some of the cans started exploding.

Later that same day.

As I was sitting on the table in the doctor’s office wearing a paper gown and scraping dried Dr. Pepper off my ankles with my fingernail, I tried to explain to the nurse why my legs were sticky. She closed her eyes and held up one hand in the universal gesture that means “Shut. Up. Now.” She really didn’t want to know. “No need to explain,” she said. “We’ve seen it all.”

I wanted to explain. I needed to tell her that I don’t normally go out with sticky legs.

“But – but – but I gussied,” I stammered, “I showered! I shaved! I wore nice underwear!”

“I’m sure you did. The doctor will be with you shortly.” And with that she left the room.

Unless he’s serving cocktails next year, I’m not going to bother to gussy. I’ll just spritz a little Dr. Pepper on my legs and be done with it.

We have some workers come to our house occasionally. I don’t know why I’m telling you they are workers — they are housekeepers, but that just sounds so pretentious and there is nothing I hate more than pretension.

At any rate, these ladies are good, trustworthy people and they do a good job. I kneel on my clean floor and worship at their feet. They help me keep my sanity and therefore I think they should be covered by insurance, but like Belgium chocolate or Pinot Grigio, they are not. And they should be. I should be able to get a prescription for them. Doseage: 3 nice ladies/1x a week. Take with cleaning products.

Where am I going with this?

Okay, that is to say. We don’t keep a lot of valuables around our house, but nonetheless I always nag remind Antique Daddy when it’s housekeeper day and I tell him to be sure to remove his money clip from his vanity.

Not because I don’t totally trust “the workers” but because I believe that even good people can be tempted. And then, if something did go missing that would be bad and awkward and why not just avoid it all together and put your dang money up?

So.

Last week when the housekeepers arrived, I let them in and Sean announces, “It’s housekeeper day! Better put your money up!”

After which I disintegrated into the dust from whence I came. Being the good housekeepers they are, they swept me up and then brushed their hands together three times in a manner that says “And that takes care of that!”

And now I’m seeking a prescription for perpetual embarrassment.

Aside: I am totally bothered that my 3-year-old is aware of and uses the phrase “housekeeper day.” Yet, not bothered enough to clean my house myself.

Sunday afternoon, the temperature dipped below 100, so Sean and I ventured out into the backyard to putter around and enjoy some fresh air. Having been indoors since the 4th of July, we both immediately began hacking and coughing. Apparently our lungs were no longer familiar with this fresh air stuff and were trying to reject it as a foreign substance.

After we acclimated, I got busy pulling weeds and stomping down mole holes and trying to spruce up our sorry yard. Sean got busy dragging every toy he owns out into our sorry yard. I noticed that what few leaves remain on my fern, have little black dots on the back, so I foraged around in the garage until I found some sort of fungicide. I gave the fern last rights, made the sign of the cross and then anointed it with the fungicide. I don’t think it will do much to deter its demise, but I will know that I did all I could and that it’s going to a better place. And it makes me feel like I’m doing something in the same way that stomping down mole holes makes me feel like I’m doing something. The black dots and the moles laugh at me. This I know. I hear them chuckling outside my bedroom window after dark as I’m trying to go to sleep.

After administering extreme unction to the fern, I noticed my neighbors strolling up the jogging trail with their 6-week-old infant. I was at their Christmas party when they announced they were twenty minutes pregnant, so I have been waiting to see this little fella for quite some time. I set down the fungicide and ran through the gate wiping my hands on my pants as I hurried around to greet them and get a look at their new little guy.

They both sported that glazed-over walking-dead expression that all new parents wear. They proudly told me they were getting four straight hours of sleep now and how that has made them feel so much better. I told them I remembered what those first months were like — the lack of sleep and the non-stop crying. And the baby cried a lot too.

I tried to offer her encouragement, telling her that I’d been there and that I know how crazy it can be. “If you ever need a break, I’d be happy to come over and help you out,” I offered. She raised her eyebrows and her eyes grew wide, so I continued talking, thinking she must be thrilled to have an offer of help from someone like me who knows what they’re doing. “If you’re having a tough day, just give me a call and I’ll pop over and watch the baby while you take a nap or get out of the house for a little while or whatever.”

I noticed she was looking past me as I enlightened her with all of my fascinating mothering know-how, but I assumed that with so little sleep she was probably having a hard time focusing. She finally interrupted my blathering and asked, “What’s that bottle of stuff Sean is holding?” I turned just in time to see Sean spray fungicide into his ear.

“What? Oh that? That’s nothing. Just a little…um… fungicide.”

I ran through the gate and tried to wrench the bottle away from Sean. We wrestled it back and forth for a while like two actors in a bad movie trying to gain control of a gun. After a brief scuffle, I finally snatched it away from him, but not before I sprayed myself in the eye in the process. When I victoriously turned back to my neighbors, I could see out of my of my one good eye that they were hurrying on down the jogging path.

After that display of skillful parenting, I’m sure she’ll be calling me real soon to help her with her baby.